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Language

The official language of Iceland is Icelandic. English is very widely spoken, and it's unlikely that you'll encounter anyone in your day-to-day life who isn't able to communicate effectively in English. Polish, Ukrainian, and Lithuanian also are spoken here due to the large immigrant populations in Iceland, which can be seen in Statistics Iceland.

However, it will certainly smooth your daily interactions to understand key phrases used in shops and restaurants. It will also be helpful to be able to say your phone number and kennitala in Icelandic.

Studying Icelandic

There are a number of institutions offering Icelandic courses aimed at foreigners. Most of them are heavily subsidised by your union membership.

An alternative for people who can't attend school for whatever reason is the wealth of free Icelandic learning resources hosted by tungumalatorg and mms.is run by Miðstöð menntunar og skólaþjónustu. For Tungumálatorg.is, the most famous example is Íslenska fyrir alla. However, learning Icelandic will not completely solve an immigrant's integration issues as is detailed in the article, We Are Inlanders (Icelandic).

Icelandic tests

In order to become Icelandic citizens, a large majority of immigrants need to pass an Icelandic language test. Here is an example from the government of the test given out: https://mms.is/sites/mms.is/files/synisprof_ipr_24.pdf The Icelandic citizenship test as well as the Icelandic residency test are both administered by Mímir on behalf of the government. In 2023, The Student Paper published an in-depth article (Icelandic) describing what to expect when taking the Icelandic citizenship test.